"Mi Viejito"

San Jose Poet Yosimar Reyes writes about his grandfather traveling to America from Mexico and living in America. Video by Jean Melesaine

This is part of a multi-media project, Arriving and Becoming, http://www.siliconvalleydebug.org/articles/selections/arriving-and-becoming/ is a collection of articles, videos, and photography produced by De-Bug media-makers on the immigrant elders of their communities. It is an effort to cross generations, borders, and languages to explore our collective Silicon Valley reality.

Silicon Valley is the destination of families from all over the world. And oftentimes, Silicon Valley immigrant families live in two realities here – the intimate, familial one lived in the language of their homeland, and the public, American one. Our immigrant cities of the Valley exist in a uniquely isolated diversity – many ethnicities and communities living amongst each other, yet not fully knowing of each other’s experiences, memories, hopes, and fears. Surely, our neighborhoods are full of families who speak different languages, eat different foods, pray to different gods – yet share the same bus, and take the same roads when walking their children to school.

This project was made possible with the support of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.